Decatur, enjoying best football season in decades, one win away from state tournament

Decatur High School’s Gators really had no reason for the optimism that sprang from those first workouts on dark early mornings in February for what has developed into the 2023 Gators football squad.

A program that had reached .500 over a season just once in two decades (5-5 in 2019) was again coming off a one-win season in 2022. But something happened during those 6 a.m. sessions in the weight room before the sun came up each day.

Internally, the Gators found a reason to believe. They built a foundation that has led Decatur to a position this program hasn’t seen since 2003 — a Week 10 district round playoff game.

“It’s OK to be irrationally optimistic,” Decatur coach Matt Vaeena said.

Even optimism had limits in August.

Hard work had been put in already and much more was to come.

In a district with open registration, the talent that grew up as Gators started to remain Gators.

And a third core of players since that 5-5 2019 team, whose seniors Vaeena gives credit for starting the process that has brought Decatur here — to a second-place finish behind Kennedy Catholic in the Class 4A North Puget Sound League and a chance to host a postseason game.

But 2023 still has exceeded even the “best case scenario” that the coaching staff set for their charges.

“You never really know what’s going to happen when the season opens,” Vaeena said. “You kind of have this best-case scenario and I don’t even know if our best-case scenario is how our season’s played out. We’ve exceeded all of that by a long shot just because we were kind of in this rebuilding process. We felt pretty good about it. It was really cool to see the kids come together, how they’ve grown from a couple of years ago to last year, taking a step forward and then jumping leaps and bounds to where we are now.

“We always thought we’d have a chance to slide into one those fourth or fifth (district) slots. So that was always our goal. If we didn’t get into one, it would be a letdown. Obviously, that was the goal. I think we secured that like two or three weeks ago. So we tried to get them to re-envision themselves. When you check a box, you have to keep moving and take a bigger swing at something else.”

The process began five seasons ago, with the 2019 squad that played most of the year with less than 20 players active on the roster. That 5-5 team, though, had five juniors that passed along what Vaeena said has become the foundation for today’s successes.

The freshmen in 2020-21 had those five as seniors, and those guys passed it along as Decatur navigated COVID-19 and steps back from 5-5 through 2022. Despite another losing record a year ago, though, those 2019 freshmen turned 2022 seniors passed it on again.

And the 15 seniors that speckle this roster have provided the foundation for what the Gators hope will be more sustained success on the field. Those seniors are along the front lines and in the defensive backfield.

“We’ve just told them to stay together no matter what,” Decatur senior defensive back Jaliel Anderson said. “We had hard seasons because we had young guys but now we’ve progressed and had more chemistry. I knew this year was going to be our year.”

So far, it’s been Decatur’s year. The Gators only loss through the regular season came at the hands of 4A NPSL champion Kennedy Catholic. The Gators beat crosstown rival Federal Way for the first time in more than three decades, and they’ll make a district playoff appearance for the first time since 2003.

The 19-year streak without a winning season is history, along with the 35-158 overall record that accompanied it. For those counting, that’s an average of 1.8 wins compared to 8.3 losses a season.

This group of seniors isn’t the only group making strides and contributing to the total turnaround, though.

“You know, the seniors are the guys up front,” Vaeena said. “The skill positions are the juniors and sophomores.”

Two of those juniors — quarterback Spencer Holloway and running back Nehemiah Washington — have the ball in their hands a lot. Washington has been the workhorse back. Against Federal Way, he carried the ball 35 times. Two weeks before that, in the game against Kentwood that clinched a winning season, he toted it 30 times.

In a district of four high schools that has an open enrollment policy, Vaeena and staff needed to get their guys to, in a sense, “stay home.”

“It’s been an interesting process,” Vaeena said. “Kids get a chance to choose where they go. You get stuck in this cycle where really, ‘They’re down, they’re down, they’re down,’ and then you have these kids that are coming up that could start to give you footing to move forward.

“That was a conversation with them, two years ago. Everything that goes into the season is attributed to them and their desire to be something different. That’s where it starts. You can go wherever you want to go and we’re always going to cheer for you. But man, why don’t you stay here and do this together. You’ll go down forever. People will talk about you forever.”

If this year is the beginning of sustained success for the Gators, expect just that — to hear the names Washington, Holloway, Anderson and others discussed in the halls (and beyond) of Decatur for the next three decades.